Advertisement

Alaska’s Rural Fishing Communities Are The Next Front Line Of COVID-19

Salmon in a fishing boat on Alaska's Naknek River. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Salmon in a fishing boat on Alaska's Naknek River. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

In a normal season, the village of Naknek in southwestern Alaska would be bustling by the end of May, with people arriving from all over the world to work Bristol Bay’s renowned salmon run.

The village’s population of around 500 swells as over 13,000 workers come to Bristol Bay to spend about six weeks fishing, canning and cleaning the products of the world’s primary source of wild-caught sockeye salmon.

This year, with the season opening just days away, “it still feels like a ghost town,” said Nels Ure, a second-generation Bristol Bay fisherman. Because of the pandemic, “it’s not business as usual.”

Seafood industry workers are under 14-day quarantine orders once they arrive in Alaska from elsewhere. Cannery workers are being quarantined either in hotels in Anchorage before they arrive at the bay, or with a group of other newly arrived employees at their facility, so they can start work while in quarantine together. Fishermen are expected to quarantine on their vessels, either in the boatyard or on the water ― or they can stay in their seasonal cabins or homes around the bay, as long as they are self-isolated.

Their work is vital to the region’s economy. Last year, Bristol Bay’s salmon industry and its workers generated $300 million in revenue. But this year, there’s concern that the thousands of people who travel here for seasonal work could bring the coronavirus with them. As of May 31, Bristol Bay has had five confirmed cases of COVID-19. Many are worried that the close quarters on boats and in canneries are the perfect environment for spread, which would create a dangerous situation in a region with limited medical resources. A confusing jumble of state and local guidelines, often weakly enforced, could make the situation worse.

Workers clean salmon carcasses on a cleaning line at the Alitak Cannery in Alitak, Alaska, in 2008. (Lucas Jackson / Reuters)
Workers clean salmon carcasses on a cleaning line at the Alitak Cannery in Alitak, Alaska, in 2008. (Lucas Jackson / Reuters)

In early April, concerned community and tribal leaders around Bristol Bay wrote to Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R), asking him not to open the commercial fishing season at all. But fishing is considered an